BLUF
The third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel falls on Wednesday, October 7. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies have spent the past two years paying local recruits to attack Jewish targets in Europe, Australia, and Canada, and Jews remain their primary target. Churches that show outward support for Israel, through flags and memorials on the property or through a pastor or prominent congregant who speaks publicly for Israel, should run increased security from October 4 through October 8.
Key Judgments
Highly Likely: The IRGC and its proxies will continue using paid local recruits and online contacts to attack Jewish targets in Europe and North America.
Highly Likely: Churches displaying Israeli flags or October 7 memorials will see more theft, vandalism, and harassment through October 8 than in an ordinary week.
Likely: Foreign terrorist organizations and Iranian-aligned networks will use the anniversary in online messaging calling for lone attackers in the United States.
Likely: Pro-Palestinian demonstrations will take place in most major U.S. cities on or around October 7.
Possible: A lone attacker will target a Jewish or pro-Israel site in the United States during the anniversary window, including a church or a pastor known for supporting Israel.
Possible: Protesters will show up at a church that has publicly advertised an October 7 vigil or Israel-themed service.
Unlikely: Iran or one of its proxies will task an attack against a U.S. church during the anniversary window. Their tasking to date has gone after Jewish and Israeli targets.
The Anchorage Flag Theft
Members of Mountain City Church in Anchorage, Alaska, placed 1,200 small Israeli flags on the church lawn by about 11 a.m. on Thursday, October 1. Each flag represented one person killed in the October 7, 2023, attack. At about 1 a.m. Friday, October 2, every flag was taken. Security video provided to The Alaska Story and Alaska’s News Source shows a truck drop off four people in front of the church, drive into a nearby neighborhood while they pulled flags, and come back to load them. The group was gone in about fifteen minutes.
Church staff told Alaska’s News Source the people on the video appeared to be about high school age and hid behind trees and rocks when cars passed. Staff called it vandalism and theft by younger people and reported it to police. The flags had been placed ahead of a Sunday sermon on what the church believes the Bible says about Israel, and staff planned to replace them before that service. Police have not identified the people or the truck.
Whatever their age, they planned it. They used a driver who dropped them off and returned, they hid from passing traffic, and they worked the lawn for fifteen minutes at 1 a.m. with nobody interrupting them. Someone with worse intentions would have had the same access for the same fifteen minutes.
Anchorage is at least the second church in two years to lose a full set of 1,200 memorial flags. In October 2025, Church International in Warrior, Alabama, had more than 1,200 Israeli flags honoring October 7 victims taken overnight on a Friday and thrown into two dumpsters. The garbage service emptied one dumpster before the church found it, and the church recovered about 300 flags. Christian Fellowship Church Sandy Cross in Nash County, North Carolina, has had its Israeli flag cut up in one incident and pulled down in another since October 2023.
Iran’s Campaign Against Jewish Targets Abroad
The IRGC has attacked Jewish targets outside the Middle East through hired locals and proxy militias for at least two years. In August 2025, Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation concluded the IRGC directed the October 2024 firebombing of a kosher deli in Sydney and the December 2024 arson that destroyed much of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. The agency’s director-general, Mike Burgess, said the IRGC passed the tasking through overseas facilitators and coordinators until it reached Australians who carried out the attacks. In October 2025, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, said an IRGC Quds Force network was behind plots and attacks on Jewish and Israeli sites in Greece, Germany, and Australia, including arson and surveillance.
The campaign expanded after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran on February 28, 2026. A federal criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan on May 15 charges Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a commander in the Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, with organizing at least 18 attacks in Europe and two in Canada since late February. Kataib Hezbollah operates as a proxy for the IRGC, and prosecutors say it claimed the European attacks under a front name, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI). The attacks named in the complaint include synagogues in Liège, Belgium, and Rotterdam, Netherlands, an explosive attack on a Jewish school in Amsterdam, and the stabbing of two Jews in London. In March alone, The Times of Israel counted at least 14 attacks, incidents, or alleged plots against Jewish institutions in Europe, Canada, and the United States, and London has had a series of arson attacks on synagogues and Jewish buildings since late March.
The same complaint shows how this reaches into the United States. Prosecutors say Al-Saadi offered online contacts $10,000 to bomb a prominent New York City synagogue, required that the attack be recorded on video, and named Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona, as additional targets. He sent a $3,000 cryptocurrency down payment to a person who turned out to be an undercover agent and told him the European attacks were working and he wanted more help in the United States and Canada. The people carrying out attacks under this model often have no training and no direct contact with Iran. They are local people recruited online and paid per attack, and they look like lone actors until investigators trace the money and messages back. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called the March 12 vehicle and gun attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community.
The flydubai Flight 1073 Attack
On September 30, flydubai Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv was carrying about 174 people, most of them Israelis. The Omani copilot attacked the captain in the cockpit and put the aircraft into a steep dive before off-duty flydubai pilots and passengers on board subdued him, and the plane landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Israel’s prime minister said the copilot had undergone Islamist radical indoctrination, and Arabic-language media report that Oman Air had removed him from flying in 2024 or 2025 for visiting extremist websites. The day before the flight, the prime minister said publicly he had received indications of a planned attack on Israel ahead of its October 27 election, and it has not been reported whether that warning related to the flight. The United Arab Emirates opened a formal investigation on October 1, including whether the attack is linked to terrorism, and investigators have not said whether anyone directed him.
The flight number has drawn attention online because 1073 can be read as October 7, three years later. FZ1073 is flydubai’s standing daily flight number for its morning Dubai to Tel Aviv route and flew under that number for months before the attack, so the copilot did not choose it. He did choose the day. Attacking a plane full of Israelis one week before the anniversary fits the pattern of attackers timing violence to the October 7 date, whether he acted on his own or someone tasked him. If investigators find outside direction, it would match the IRGC model described above, with an insider reached through a chain of contacts and pointed at a target.
What Governments Have Said About the Anniversary
For the first anniversary in 2024, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a joint public warning that the date could motivate violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators. A bulletin from the FBI, DHS, and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) sent to local police listed “memorials, vigils, or other demonstrations” as attractive targets, alongside synagogues, mosques, and community centers. The agencies warned that online messaging about the anniversary could push individuals to act alone with little or no warning. A church lawn covered in October 7 memorial flags falls in the memorial category that bulletin named.
On September 6, 2026, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) issued its holiday-season warning for Israelis and Jews abroad. The NSC said October 7 could be a focus of protests, possibly violent, and of increased efforts to carry out attacks. It named Iran and its proxies as the primary source of the threat and reported that 25 Israelis and Jews have been killed in terror attacks abroad since the war began. The council also reported a marked increase in lone attackers going after soft targets such as places of worship and community centers.
The 2026 Threat Environment in the United States and Britain
On January 10, an arsonist set fire to Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early morning hours of the Sabbath. On July 23, a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” stabbed two people in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, one of them leaving synagogue services. In the last week of September, British police arrested a United Kingdom and Iranian dual national in London over a suspected plot against a U.S.-run air base, and the British prime minister said there are strong indications of Iranian involvement. On October 2, 2025, five days before the second anniversary, an attacker rammed a car into the gates of Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, England, during Yom Kippur prayers and killed two people.
Jewish congregations also mark the anniversary on the Hebrew calendar at Simchat Torah, the holiday on which Hamas attacked in 2023. Simchat Torah falls on October 3 and 4 this year, so the anniversary period runs from that weekend through Wednesday, October 7.
Why Churches That Support Israel Are in the Target Set
Most government reporting on the anniversary focuses on synagogues, Jewish schools, and Israeli diplomatic sites, and Jews remain the primary target of this campaign. Christian churches that show outward support for Israel belong on the watch list as well. That support is visible on the property through Israeli flags, October 7 memorials, banners, and announced vigils or Israel-themed services. It also comes through people, such as a pastor who preaches on Israel and posts the sermons online, a pastor or congregant who speaks for Israel in the media or on social media, or a church that hosts Israeli speakers or leads trips to Israel.
An attacker looking for a pro-Israel target can find these churches as easily as a synagogue, and they usually have less security. Many synagogues in major cities will have police at the door this week, while most churches with a lawn display have nobody on the property overnight. A pastor known for public support of Israel can be identified and located from what is posted online. Theft and vandalism of displays remain the most common result, and the Anchorage, Warrior, and Nash County incidents all happened with no one from the church on the grounds. The concern for this week is the smaller number of people who notice a display or a sermon and come back during a service.
Actions for Your Team, October 4 Through October 8
Photograph the display. Walk the display before the first service on Sunday and photograph it so you have a record if anything is taken or damaged.
Cover the display at night. Point an existing exterior camera at the display, confirm it records in the dark, and confirm someone on the team can pull the footage the next morning. If you have no camera coverage of that area, ask your pastor about bringing the display inside after dark for the week.
Cover the pastor. If your pastor or a congregant has spoken publicly in support of Israel, assign one team member to that person from arrival to departure at every service and event through October 8, including the walk to the car.
Call your police non-emergency line before Sunday. Tell them the church has an Israel display, an October 7 event, or a pastor who speaks publicly on Israel, give them your service times, and ask for extra patrol passes overnight and on Wednesday evening.
Staff Wednesday night. October 7 falls on a Wednesday. If your church holds a midweek service or Bible study, schedule your full team for it with one person at each open entrance and one person in the parking lot.
Brief greeters and ushers on protesters. Tell them not to engage protesters on the sidewalk, to send any contact to the team leader, and to call 911 if anyone blocks an entrance or comes onto the property to confront people.
Check online comments daily. Have one team member read the comments on the church’s social media posts and posted sermons about Israel each day through October 8, screenshot any threat, and give it to police with the link to the post.
Limit what gets posted. Ask the pastor whether an October 7 vigil or Israel-themed event needs its exact time and location on the public website, or whether the details can go to members by email or text.
Report incidents. If your display is vandalized or stolen, file a police report the same day and submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) through the Christian Warrior Training (CWT) Intelligence Platform at intel.christianwarriortraining.com. Include the time, any vehicle description, and video if you have it.
Threat Assessment
The overall threat level for churches that show outward support for Israel during the October 4 through October 8 window is HIGH (ORANGE). This matches the current Church Security Threat Level System (CSTLS) setting, which has held at HIGH (ORANGE) since June 2026 because of the war with Iran, Iranian proxy operations, and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) messaging targeting Christians. The anniversary does not move the level to RED (CRITICAL), because no reporting I have seen points to a specific, credible plot against a U.S. church.
The primary concern is theft and vandalism of Israel displays. It is highly likely those incidents continue through the week, carried out overnight by people who arrive by vehicle, work fast, and leave before anyone responds. The secondary concern is a lone attacker, either self-motivated by anniversary messaging online or recruited and paid through an Iranian proxy network. Iran’s tasking has gone after Jewish targets so far, and it is unlikely a proxy tasks an attack on a U.S. church this week. It is possible a self-motivated attacker selects a church or pastor with visible support for Israel, and if so, it is likely he comes during a service or advertised event when people are present.
Teams at churches with Israel displays, October 7 events, or a pastor who speaks publicly on Israel should staff Sunday and Wednesday the way they staff a high-attendance holiday service. Document and report any person photographing, filming, or loitering near the display or the pastor. Churches with no outward Israel connection should hold their normal HIGH (ORANGE) posture.
Biblical Lens
“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.” (Romans 11:17-18, ESV)
Paul tells Gentile believers they were grafted into Israel’s olive tree and draw their life from its root, and he warns them against arrogance toward the natural branches. A church that flies Israel’s flag or prays for the Jewish people on October 7 is acting on that teaching, and it should expect some of the hostility aimed at Israel to come its way. Stand with Israel this week, and put a guard on your doors while you do it.
If your church has an Israel display up or has had one targeted, leave a comment below with the date, the time, and what was taken or damaged. We track these reports to see the pattern across the country. Share this bulletin with your pastor and your team leader before Sunday.
Am Yisrael Chai! (the people of Israel live)
Thank you for your support of the Holy Land, and the people of God's covenant (Gen. 17:7-8)
How do we get the written SOP for Managing Protester Disruptions in Church Services?